The definitive 1950-1980 F1 TV coverage thread

Some time ago I've decided to make a list of all tv coverage of F1 races from 1950 to 1980. I compiled pretty much all information I gathered from various sources, including this forum (and big thanks for all the information I was able to find here).

Currently, the list has only the championship races, but I may expand it later. However, the priority for me is to complete championship races list first.

I hope you find this useful, it may be a good thing for people who try to find old tapes in TV archives.

Also, I would be very, very thankful for any additional information about TV broadcasts from those 3 decades.

The '67 Mexican GP was shown at least in highlight form, maybe by ABC or the local channel - there's a shot of a TV cameraman filming at one corner and a shot of the TV output monitor in the pits with a broadcast engineer nearby while a commentator does his job on 'Nine Days in Summer'.

That's very interesting information, Imevision was launched in late 1968, I have no idea who would have ability to cover the race before that. Surely that would mean other country sent their crew there, BBC did for Wheelbase (funny thing, anti-advertisement politics had to end before end of 1968 season). I didn't list down that one, because it didn't use "tv" cameras, but rather BBCs own ones (I think they stopped using tv cameras in Wheelbase with the end of 1967).

Would there be enough interest in United States to cover it by ABC?

Edit: Oh, my mistake. Seems like Mexico had TV service before Imevision was found, actually from 1946. Still, I have no idea which Mexican tv station would broadcast it, though.

Edit2: after some research I think it is one of these: Canal 2, Canal 4 or Canal 5.

If you are trying to locate footage remember that in the early days (define that how you like) races were also covered by newsreels. I can remember seeing a 1957 Pathe News/ British News featuring the British GP while in Swaziland in the seventies. (Someone had found it in the back of a cupboard and put it on before a film show while the latecomers arrived and took their seats). I've also read of old TV tapes being found in strange places such a the Zimbabwe TV archives.

The first tv I saw were parts of the 1961 Dutch Grand Prix and 1963 Monaco Grand Prix on NOS.But I do not know if they have survived...

Considering Monaco 59 and Zandvoort 63 have survived and are in good quality for their age I'd say there is a good chance they have survived. Sadly they don't appear in the Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid archives

Also, it appears that Pescara 1957 was indeed shown live by RAI (first live broadcast of F1 championship race). It was split into two segments.

I don't there was a single TV station that showed Germany 1976, everyone was showing Olympic Games that day, so that would actually solve the mystery of no footage of this race. Also Germany 1974 is not on anyone's schedule (I checked most of TV stations from Europe that showed F1 in 70s), but RAI has helicopter footage of Lauda's crash on the first lap of this race, so maybe there was a broadcast.

Surprisingly, couldn't find also a single TV station that showed Sweden 1974, 76 or 77, although I believe Polish TV showed 1977 race at night (sadly, they don't have anything in their archives, checked it about 5 times).

It seems that apart from ORF, Swiss tv stations TSR, TSI and TSA showed most of European races from 70s.

As far as interesting things I found in TV listings, RAI showed live beginning of 1976 USA East race.

Great work again, dweller. I suppose the ultimate (and maybe impossible) goal might be to document how much of these broadcasts survive?

I'm sure, some of them did. I read somewhere that Tupi television was getting all Globo F1 broadcasts and that their whole archive was saved and is owned now by TV Cultura. This should be the best place to start looking for some of the unique things Globo showed (for example Argentina 77).

RAI is another good place, since Perle di Sport programme on RaiSport 2 shows a lot of F1 from 1970s (most recently 1 hour from 1976 Italian Grand Prix). These would be B&W until 1977, though.

I've read that ORF gave an access to their archives through University of Vienna last year, so that could be another place to check. While a lot of ORF recordings were found in the past, I hope that there's some more (especially full version of Japan 1976, which, by the way, is not the first overseas live F1 broadcast in Europe, 1974 USA was earlier - that's probably the first one).

Other than that, I think it would be tough. Switzerland showed loads of F1 on RSI/TSR/SF, but I have no idea is there any way to access their archives.

And I saw a EuroVisie a 2 part report on the 1962 or 1963 Pau Grand Prix on Dutch NOS TV....

South Africa didn't have TV until 1975, so any coverage would necessarily be from any foreign broadcasters who could afford to send a cameraman or two and be highlights only - the BBC pictures were perhaps shared between several other broadcasters to defray the cost. With no host broadcaster to upload pictures to a satellite attempting a live broadcast would have been prohibitively expensive and probably a logistical impossibility.

I know memory can play tricks but I seem to recall watching the French GP on BBC TV around 1963 or 1964. In fact I'd go for 1964 as I think it was Rouen rather than Reims. It partly sticks in my mind as I was at a friend's house where I watched the start, and saw the latter stages back at my house.

I can remember watching the French GP's of 1961-62-63 live on BBC, not sure about '64. I was on holiday and remember hearing the result on the radio and being delighted Dan Gurney had won after his bad luck in the previous race at Spa.
I'm not sure about 1965 but definatley saw the 1966 race live from Reims.

I searched through the swedish media database (http://smdb.kb.se/) yesterday and it seems the Grands prix of Holland and Italy 1978 were broadcasted on swedish television. Both the GP´s were broadcasted live.

It looks though like (according to the swedish media database) those two races were the only ones broadcasted on swedish television in the 1970´s. But that can´t possibly be true? I know i´ve read in one swedish motor-magazine from the 70´s that at least the Monaco GP 1970 or 1971 was broadcasted. And I believe some more GP´s were broadcasted as well (some of the Swedish GP´s i asume?).
(I was´nt born until 1981 so unfortunately I can´t tell from my own memories.)

But anyway, I can confirm that the Grands prix of Holland and Italy 1978 were broadcasted live on the swedish television (SVT).

Edit: I noticed now that you already have the swedish television broadcast from the Monaco GP 1970 listed.

anybody has the f1 highlights of the bbc from 1987 on dvd to swap? I have the seasons from 1979 to 1986 and I want to continue my collection
I coul swapd some races (f1 and endurance) of my collection.

By the way, it would seem that RAI will show most of 1977 season on Rai Sport 2, Perle di Sport programme. They already showed full Italy 77, short segment of Long Beach 77 and 1 hour of Zandvoort and they announced that they're going to show Austria 77 this weekend (1 hour again). It's a shame that RAI didn't show Belgium and Sweden that year, I'd love to see those.

Fascinating stuff. I am fascinated by all of this and have seen a lot of coverage'saved' from the 1970's. The rai channel is doing a great job of showing it eg whole of monza 1977 in colour,but I don't know if bernie/FOM had a word but you now can't access their footage on their website outside Italy but kind Italians are putting the latest editions on youtube. eg Two questions? Was 1977 Mosport ever televised? I have seen Hunt hit the marshal on a youtube clip with I think french commentary on some sort of archive style review I suspect. I had memories of seeing the Mass /Hunt shunt and found it 3 minutes into the Sheene/Hunt documentary on youtube. Unfortunately the excellent motors tv reiew just seem to have one camera really there.

Second question concerned Swedish coverage. ITV provided the film crew in 1978 but was it televised before 1978. Here is a clip I found on youtube which i think is tv coverage.

ORTF (listed as TF1, should be ORTF) showed the full 1971 Italian GP live. A copy has survived the years, too.
If my guy is right, BBC did show Spa 58. What he has survived the years (45 minutes in total, I believe) but I can't confirm anything until I get the video.

CBS showed the 1964 USGP and at least a summary of the European races at the end of the year, probably around the USGP tv broadcast. A copy still exists of that two hour show.

Interestingly, this week RAI is showing on Perle di Sport USA East 1977 - which I didn't list. I think it will be similar to Long Beach - live segment of the race. Also, it gives a hope that there's somewhere Canada 1977 in RAIs archive.

I have an italian Autosprint magazines from almost whole 1973 season and as i remember, whole 1973 F1 season was transmitted from Swiss TV. Even Argentinian, Brasilian and South African GP were transmitted directly in full colour and in full integrity. I must check these old magazines and scan TV schedule.

The first hungarian broadcasting was in 1976 Austrian GP.This time we was communist country-and we had only one Broadcasting channel was MTV(Magyar Televízió).The commentator was Sándor Dávid,and the main journalist(who knows about F1) was Andrew Frankl from Britain.
It was a story about this event:The race was too long and the MTV was broken the broadcasting.Too many people wrote to MTV 'why broken the broadcasting?' After year-by-year broadcaster more and more events.If I remember in 1993 was the first year when was the full season broadcasting in MTV.

I have an italian Autosprint magazines from almost whole 1973 season and as i remember, whole 1973 F1 season was transmitted from Swiss TV. Even Argentinian, Brasilian and South African GP were transmitted directly in full colour and in full integrity. I must check these old magazines and scan TV schedule.

That would be great. I looked into some of the archival newspapers, but the best I could find about 1973 was 1h of delayed broadcast of Brazillian GP showed on SF.

The first hungarian broadcasting was in 1976 Austrian GP.This time we was communist country-and we had only one Broadcasting channel was MTV(Magyar Televízió).The commentator was Sándor Dávid,and the main journalist(who knows about F1) was Andrew Frankl from Britain.It was a story about this event:The race was too long and the MTV was broken the broadcasting.Too many people wrote to MTV 'why broken the broadcasting?' After year-by-year broadcaster more and more events.If I remember in 1993 was the first year when was the full season broadcasting in MTV.

Thanks for the info. Do you know any more races from 1976-1980 period that were shown by MTV?

Also, does anyone know which TV station covered F1 in Venezuela in 1970s? I know that 1977 Long Beach GP was shown live in Venezuela, but I have no idea which channel showed it.

It would appear, that the race was not broadcasted at all. Apparently, SVT did not want to show the race at all, because of advertisement on cars (presumably, for similar reasons that BBC refused to show races that year). Moreover, they apparently did not even film it, because as Austrian newspaper reported, there was only radio transmission.

However, there is a 3min clip from that race, which uses world feed cameras. Since it wasn't filmed by SVT, this could mean, the race was filmed by other crew (like 1979 Austrian GP, or as rumor has it, 1976 German GP as well). Perhaps, like in the case of 1979 Austrian GP it was Polivideo? I think it's worth doing further research on that topic.

Unfortunately, I can't find any information concerning broadcast of 1976 German GP, but I presume, the reason that it wasn't shown was possible clash with Olympic Games.

Finally, I managed to find information about 1976 Japanese GP broadcast in Australia. The race was shown on Channel 9, scheduled from 2PM to 4PM (Sydney time).

As far as I know this was the ONLY live coverage of this race. From what I gathered, Japanese tv TBS (not Fuji TV) was supposed to show the race, but due to the rain delay they showed only beginning of it.

So my theory about 1977 Swedish GP not being shown anywhere was wrong. ITV actually showed the highlights of this race (Saturday, six days later) - only 15 minutes, though.

I've seen 5min long Swedish GP highlights from 1977 with natural sounds and noticed that the only camera used in those highlights was in the same position as main camera for Wheelbases 1973 Swedish GP highlights which were rebroadcasted number of times on ESPN Classic. I also watched short highlights of 1975 race - which was covered by many countries, and the camera position was completely different (plus - there was a lot more cameras than in 1977...). 1978 race was covered by many countries as well and it had yet another configuration of cameras.

I'm wondering in what position were the cameras for 1974 and 1976 - another two races which weren't shown live in most countries - maybe this could lead to understanding which company filmed which races in Anderstorp.

I still am missing the information about F1 broadcasts in Sweden in 1970s, so I can't say for 100% that SVT didn't show 1973, 74, 76 and 77 races, but it looks like it could be true.

At first responsibility was given to Charlton's failed attemp to outbrake Reutemann into the sharp righthand corner. A film clip of the ORF showed, however, that the following Hailwood was already on three wheels when he headed towards the spining Lotus.

I also remember that in rallye racing at the end of 1976 an article was printed how German TV tried to broadcast the Japanese Grand Prix, but I don't remember what happened in the end. But I will have the chance to check the rallye racing again it in a few weeks.

Apart from showing Monaco every year (and not showing USA, because CBS did that, usually a few months after the event...), they showed Mexico and Italy. In fact, Mexico was shown from the very first championship race, in 1963 and most likely was shown up until 1970 (can't confirm all the races yet).

Apart from showing Monaco every year (and not showing USA, because CBS did that, usually a few months after the event...), they showed Mexico and Italy. In fact, Mexico was shown from the very first championship race, in 1963 and most likely was shown up until 1970 (can't confirm all the races yet).

You can add Portuguese station RTP to the live broadcasts of the 1966 French Grand Prix (not all the race but 3 different segments). I do remember it as it was the first F1 race I had ever seen and I became instantly a Bandini fan.

You can add Portuguese station RTP to the live broadcasts of the 1966 French Grand Prix (not all the race but 3 different segments). I do remember it as it was the first F1 race I had ever seen and I became instantly a Bandini fan.

Thanks a lot for this information. Portugese TV schedules from pre-1969 are quite poor, so I wasn't aware of this one. If you remember any other races, that my list missing, please tell me, I will be very thankful.

Thanks a lot for this information. Portugese TV schedules from pre-1969 are quite poor, so I wasn't aware of this one. If you remember any other races, that my list missing, please tell me, I will be very thankful.

Dweller, I am afraid the next one I remember (for obvious sad reasons) is Monaco 67 and you already have it. Then I left the country in 1968-1969 and from my return at end of the year your schedule looks pretty accurate. In the sixties, GP racing in Portuguese TV (one single channel for most of the decade) was quite an event, though for some unfathomable reason they used to broadcast the Le Mans 24 Hours! I would not be too surprised that the holes in your schedule are minimal. In case one day, you would like to add the commentators, the usual one at that time was Joaquim Felipe Nogueira, a famous driver - at local level - from the fifties and early sixties, who appears here and there in a few threads in this forum.

Thanks for this information as well! I am also working on the commentators list, but it will take some time before I finish it. I was only aware of Adriano Cerqueira commentating some of the races for RTP in the 70s, so this is very valuable information for me.

Also, did Janus Lengel ever commentated races for RTP? I know he had few guest appearances on Globo in mid 70s, while his wife was a studio expert in one of the first (if not first) Polish F1 broadcasts - Monaco 77.

Finally, I managed to find information about 1976 Japanese GP broadcast in Australia. The race was shown on Channel 9, scheduled from 2PM to 4PM (Sydney time).

As far as I know this was the ONLY live coverage of this race. From what I gathered, Japanese tv TBS (not Fuji TV) was supposed to show the race, but due to the rain delay they showed only beginning of it.

Very nice information.... one hopes there is a copy out there somewhere. If the Australian coverage was the only live telecast, i wonder who would have done the commentary?